Top playwright’s work at theatre

A play by one of the leading British dramatists is coming to the Talisman Theatre in Kenilworth next week.

Terence Rattigan’s Separate Tables is to be staged from Monday February 1 to Saturday February 6.

The director, Vicky Whitehill, whose previous works include Priestley’s An Inspector Calls and plays by AlanAyckbourn, describes the play as “probably Rattigan’s finest work and demonstrates his immensely artful characterisation”.

It consists of two plays set in the dining-room and lounge of a private genteel Beauregard hotel in Bournemouth during the 1950’s.

The hotel makes sure residents are obliged to take meals at individual tables, symbolising the isolation of the individuals.

All characters apart from three transients live permanently at the hotel.

Except for the two leads in each, the same characters appear in both.

In the table by the Window, a down-at-heels journalist is confronted by his ex-wife, a former model who provoked him to a violent act that sent him to prison and ruined him.

Still loving each other, they nevertheless go through another terrible scene and it is the hotel manager, Miss Cooper (Julie Godfrey), who finds a way to repair their broken lives.

In Table Number Seven, a bogus army Major (Dave Crossfield) without the background and education he claims and a neurotic girl with a ruthless domineering mother have formed a curious friendship.

A sordid scandal threatens to drive them apart, but when all seems lost Miss Cooper comes to the rescue once again.

Critic Harold Hobson described the play as “one of Rattigan’s masterpieces, in which he shows in superlative degree his pathos, his humour and his astounding mastery over [the] English language...”

The director has drawn a cast together including Denise Barham, Geraldine Cousin, Anne Bennett, Julie-Ann Randell, Ruth Jones, Alice Scott, Sandy Robertson and Jack Sargent – all names that will be familiar to afficianadoes of local theatre.

Performances start at 7:30pm each night.

Tickets are between £8 and £9.

To book call the box office on 01926 856548 or visit www.talismantheatre.co.uk.